How Did Marilyn Monroe Really Die?

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," July 24, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Now Michael Jackson passed away just weeks ago and already there's a swarm of controversy surrounding his death. Was it suicide? Was it accidental? Was it intentional? Or was it something much worse? Was it murder?

Now nearly 50 years after the fact, these are the exact same questions that the world is still asking of another American legend, one who also left us all too soon and all too strangely.

Our Conspiracy Theory Month continues tonight as we take a look at the facts, the myths and the mystery surrounding the death of Marilyn Monroe.

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HANNITY (voice-over): Marilyn Monroe, she had it all.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Physical beauty, her figure, that smile on her face.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was the greatest star of the 20th century.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fate assigned her the role that she eventually finished, which was a tragic death.

HANNITY: At the age of just 36 Marilyn's fascinating life came to an abrupt halt.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She died at the peak of her career, the peak of her beauty.

HANNITY: Adding to the starlet's mystique was the truth about how she died, which continues to be shrouded in mystery to this very day.

DONALD WOLFE, AUTHOR, "THE LAST DAYS OF MARILYN MONROE": People don't really want to know what actually happened to her. I think they would prefer the mystery, because what really happened to her is a rather dark story.

HANNITY: August 4, 1962, Marilyn had spent the day quietly at her home in Brentwood, California.

WOLFE: There were a series of phone calls that she received that evening. One of them was from Joe DiMaggio Jr., who said that she was very clear minded.

HANNITY: That phone call was reported to be around 7:15 p.m. Just 30 minutes later Marilyn was said to have received another phone call, this time from her friend, Peter Lawford, a fellow actor who was married to Pat Kennedy, sister of Jack and Robert Kennedy, and she wasn't sounding quite as clear-minded anymore.

MEL AYTON, AUTHOR, "QUESTIONS OF CONTROVERSY": Her words were slurry; she sounded extremely disturbed, according to Lawford.

HANNITY: At this point, the story takes many twists and many turns.

DR. CYRIL WECHT, AUTHOR, "TALES FROM THE MORGUE": She was found dead quite unexpectedly, found presumably by her maid.

HANNITY: Marilyn's housekeeper was a woman by the name of Eunice Murray.

WECHT: This maid called the two doctors, her internist and her psychiatrist. They got there about 11:30 that night. It's a proven fact that Marilyn Monroe was dead by 11 p.m. that night, and yet the police weren't called until about 3:30, 4 in the morning.

But it is strongly believed that some federal government officials, FBI and/or CIA were present at that house during that interval.

HANNITY: Donald Wolfe tells another version of what could have happened.

WOLFE: Norman Jeffries, the handyman that worked for Marilyn, said he had been there that night. And he said he was in Mrs. Murray's room there watching television when Robert Kennedy and the two men that were dressed in suits arrived at the door and told Mrs. Murray and Norman to leave.

He said they just went to the neighbor's house, and they were only about 20 minutes when they saw Robert Kennedy drive off with the two men. And they returned to the house. They went to the guest cottage. And that's when they found Marilyn comatose on the bed, and that her file cabinet had been rifled through.

HANNITY: Lividity on the posterior side of Marilynn's body could indicate that she actually died lying on her back. A possible explanation of this could be Wolfe's theory, that Marilyn died on her back in the guest cottage and then was moved to her bedroom inside of the house and arranged face down.

WOLFE: Jack Clemens, who was the watch commander at the Westwood Village Police Department, received the call that Marilyn had died. And he went to the address at about 4:30 in the morning. He found her body face down on the bed, her arms and legs to her side. And Jack Clemens knew immediately — he told me that the death scene had been rearranged.

HANNITY: The official cause of death was ruled to be acute barbituate poisoning by Dr. Thomas Noguchi of the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office. Marilyn's autopsy report revealed lethal doses of Nembutal and chlorohydrate were found in her system. The question is, how did the drugs get there?

WECHT: The amount of pills that would have been taken by her, it was a huge amount, so her death could not have been accidental.

WOLFE: To have that high level of barbituate in her blood stream, she would have had to swallow from 60 to 85 tablets, according to Dr. Noguchi. Yet when he examined her digestive track, there was not one scrap of evidence of barbituate in her digestive system. None at all.

WECHT: It would seem that the chlorohydrate very likely may have been ingested. That would have made her quite cloudy, and at that point then, it is very easy to inject somebody. Injection of the Nembutal would lead to a rapid death and would not result in any residue being found in her digestive system.

HANNITY: If Marilyn was indeed injected with the drugs that killed her, then who administered the lethal shot? Is it possible that America's favorite movie star was murdered?

WECHT: I believe there are too many reasons to sustain a contention that she committed suicide and that, of course, then leaves you with homicide.

HANNITY: Many theories hint that her death somehow could be related to her ties with the Kennedy family. It is speculated that the starlet had an affair with President Kennedy and also possibly with his brother Robert.

WECHT: It had reached the point that Marilyn Monroe was too much of a potential embarrassment to the Kennedys. Now, that does not necessarily mean that it was they or either of them who had her done in. It could have been just anybody, federal agency, mafia.

HANNITY: It is believed that Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana was linked to JFK, that not only did he help Kennedy secure the state of Illinois to win the presidency, but it's also believed that he was recruited by the CIA during the Kennedy administration to help assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Some have suggested that the mobster may have been recruited to help assassinate Marilyn, as well.

AYTON: Marilyn Monroe certainly had links through Frank Sinatra. She knew the likes of Sangi(ph) and Connor(ph), but there's no evidence whatsoever that the mob did her in.

HANNITY: So what, then, really happened on the night of August the 4th?

WOLFE: There was obviously a cover-up of what happened to her. There were samples from the autopsy that disappeared. Mrs. Murray, her housekeeper, kept changing her story. Jack Clemens, the first police officer on the scene, always said that she was a murder victim.

WECHT: My God, what is the business of the CIA, which was involved, or the FBI, which was involved? And why are they still holding onto information now in 2009 in a death that occurred in 1962 that we're told was just a suicide? It doesn't make sense.

HANNITY: Was the official explanation of suicide just a convenient cover?

WECHT: The coroner put down "probable suicide." I have signed off on death certificates, 16,000 autopsies that I've done myself. I have never seen "probable suicide." That word, "probable," tells me more than a thousand words could possibly explain about the great doubt that existed in their minds.

HANNITY: It seems we may never know the truth of what happened that fateful night. Therefore, we continue to be fascinated with the mystery of Marilyn Monroe's death, just as we continue to be fascinated with her life.

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